THE director general of the National Crime Agency will review historic allegations of child abuse at North Wales care homes, Home Secretary Theresa May told the Commons today.

Keith Bristow will lead investigations into new claims about sex offences against youngsters in the 1970s and 1980s, and review how previous inquiries were carried out.

Mrs May said North Wales Police chief constable Mark Polin asked Mr Bristow to “assess the allegations recently received, to review the historic police investigations and investigate any fresh allegations reported to police into the alleged historic abuse in North Wales care homes”.

Mrs May said Serious Organised Crime Agency and Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre experts would also take part in the review.

She said Home Office funds were available if needed and added that Mr Bristow’s report into the historic investigation and any fresh allegations would be complete by April.

She echoed Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge yesterday that an urgent inquiry would take place to see if a late-1990s inquiry by Sir Ronald Waterhouse "was properly constituted and did its job".

The Home Secretary’s statement to MPs follows claims last week on the BBC’s Newsnight that Sir Ronald’s 2000 report Lost in Care did not name many suspected abusers because it was defamatory.

Mrs May said: "The report found no evidence of a paedophile ring beyond the care system which was the basis of the rumours that followed the original police investigation, and indeed one of the allegations that has been made in the last week.

"Last Friday, a victim of sexual abuse at one of the homes named in the report - Steve Messham - alleged that the inquiry did not look at abuse outside the care homes, and he renewed allegations against the police and several individuals.

"This Government is treating these allegations with the utmost seriousness.

"Child abuse is a hateful, abhorrent and disgusting crime, and we must not allow these allegations to go unanswered."

She said victims who came forward would be supported, adding: "Those of us in positions of authority and responsibility will not shirk our duty to support you.

"We must do everything in our power to do everything we can to help you, and everything we can to get to the bottom of these terrible allegations."

A 1991 North Wales Police probe led to seven convictions against former care workers involved in abuse, while Sir Ronald Waterhouse's inquiry, set-up and backed by successive former Welsh Secretaries, made 72 recommendations for improving the protection of vulnerable youngsters.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper warned that there could be confusion as a result of the number of different investigations into child abuse allegations, including those into the activities of Jimmy Savile.

Her call for a single overarching public inquiry was echoed by a number MPs from across the House.

Ms Cooper said: "These are deeply disturbing allegations. Child abuse and sexual abuse of children and young people are among the most sinful of crimes.

"When adults who should be trusted to care for children abuse their power and position of trust, committing violent crimes that can haunt those young people for the rest of their lives.

"That is of course made worse if society and the institutions charged with protecting children, including in the criminal justice system, fail to step in to provide greater protection or fail to hold perpetrators to account."

She added: "We do now have a whole series of inquiries under way looking into similar problems in addition to the important police and criminal investigations.

"There are three BBC inquiries into what happened with Jimmy Savile, a Department of Health inquiry as well as several separate hospital inquiries, a CPS inquiry, a new North Wales inquiry and an HMIC inquiry into other forces who may have received allegations about Jimmy Savile.

"We have already raised concerns that the Savile investigations ought to be brought under a single inquiry and we remain concerned that these multiple inquiries have no way to draw together the common themes, the problems, the lessons that need to be learned.

"Of course we need to get to the bottom of what is happening in each case, but at the moment the framework the Government has set out risks being very confused.

"We have to have a proper way to learn the right lessons for the current framework for safeguarding children."

Despite changes to the child protection regime, Ms Cooper said: "All of us remain concerned that too often victims of sexual abuse, particularly children, are not believed and not taken seriously enough."

Mrs May confirmed that the police investigation would be able to go wherever the evidence took it.

"If there are any avenues to pursue in terms of criminal investigations then the police should take those wherever they go," she said.

The Home Secretary added: "If, at the end of the processes that we’ve set in train it appears that it is necessary to move forward to a wider investigation then we will look at that."

Tory former children's minister Tim Loughton said he had predicted the Savile allegations would be the ``tip of the iceberg''.

He said: "We should not be surprised now child abuse has raised its head within a political spectrum as well."

Mr Messham claimed a senior Tory politician was one of those who abused him and criticised the way Sir Ronald Waterhouse conducted his inquiry, arguing the terms of reference meant he was not able to raise the issue of abuse outside the care system.

Mr Loughton said: "We now have a multiplicity of inquiries. This is an inquiry about an inquiry.

"Is it not now time, rather than wake up every week to see a new institution involved in this mire, that we have an overreaching, robust public inquiry into the whole failings of child protection in various institutions throughout the latter part of the 20th century, be it the BBC, the health service, the police, the church and so on."

He said all institutions needed a "fit for purpose" child protection policy.

Mrs May said it was important that the police were allowed to do their job in investigating potential crimes.

"Let’s see the criminal investigations pursue their route and then, if there is a case for this to go wider, then of course the Government will look at that."

Bryn Estyn child abuse victim Steve Messham, speaking to Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Radio 5 Live, said the senior Tory from the time who he claimed was among the perpetrators of the abuse should be arrested.

"I think police need to investigate him, I think he needs to be formally interviewed and I think we take it from there," he told the programme.

"What is he worried about if he has got nothing to hide? Please go to the police and make a full statement."

He told the programme: "I would like to see him be arrested, to be fair.

"I would love to see him in court, I would love to see him in prison, he deserves it."

Mr Messham said he received a phone call from David Cameron’s private secretary this morning.

"They were just reassuring me that they are taking this matter very seriously, reassuring me that they wanted an inquiry into the abuse, not just an inquiry into the inquiry," he said.

"Years ago I can understand it was a taboo subject but it is not a taboo subject today and I just think it is now time people opened up, it is now time for people to speak out and it is time for the truth to come out.

"The lack of investigations and the poor quality of the inquiry is what needs to be sorted out."